Melchior (magus)
one of the Biblical Magi; in 16th-century paintings generally portrayed as an old man with white hair kneeling at the feet of the Madonna & Child
Melchior, or Melichior, was purportedly one of the Biblical Magi (along with Caspar and Balthazar) who visited the infant Jesus after he was born. Melchior was often referred to as the oldest member of the Magi. He was traditionally called the King of Persia and brought the gift of gold to Jesus. In the Western Christian church, he is regarded as a saint (as are the other two Magi).
Tradition
The Gospels in the New Testament do not give the names of the Magi, or even their number; however, their traditional names are ascribed to a Greek manuscript from 500 AD translated into Latin and commonly accepted as the source of the names. Melchior was described by Bede in the 8th century as being "an old man, with white hair and long beard." Melchior is also commonly referred to as the King of Persia. Following the Star of Bethlehem, the Magi first travelled to the palace of Herod the Great, who then asked for the Magi to find the Child Jesus and report back to him. Upon arriving at the house, the Magi worshipped him and opened their gifts, with Melchior giving the gift of gold to signify Jesus' kingship over the world. According to a medieval saints calendar, following his return to Persia, Melchior met up with the other Magi again in 54 AD in the Kingdom of Armenia to celebrate Christmas before dying aged 116 on 1 January 55 AD.
Commemoration
Melchior, along with the other Magi, is purported to be buried in the Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral following his remains being moved from Constantinople by Eustorgius I in 314 AD to Milan. In 1164, Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa moved them to Cologne.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as one of the Biblical Magi; in 16th-century paintings generally portrayed as an old man with white hair kneeling at the feet of the Madonna & Child. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3062478. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1164.
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This entry incorporates text from “Melchior (magus)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.